Something Rotten

After the messy disappointment of The Well of the Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde is back to deliver. Absurd, smart, silly and amusingly confusing. It’s full on Thursday Next.

Hamlet is walking around in the new world. So is the Minotaur, under the name of Norman Johnson. A politician tries to start a war with the Danes and everything Danish, Thursday has a son (Friday) with an eradicated husband and a croquet game needs to be won to save the world. There are also Neanderthals, evil mega corporations and chimeras, sometimes with a human arm. And don’t forget the jumps between fiction and real life, like the jurisfiction agent that happens to be a huge hedgehog.

To some this will sound as too hysterical, too crowded to have room for a plot. The first is a matter of opinion, the second definitely isn’t true. Thursday is juggling 3 – 5 cases and real life problems at the same time, and almost all of them get tied up neatly.

Tickled and relieved I can conclude that Fforde didn’t lose it after all.